Top 15 Professors in The US

I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well – Alexander the Great

There are several factors that go into making a university a great institute. Campus, facilities, opportunities, courses and the most important of them all – faculty.

Here is a list of the top 15 professors in the US, along with what and where they are teaching.

  1. Harold Bloom

    2. Yale – Professor of Humanities

    Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He has written more than 20 books on literary criticism, a number of books on religion and a novel. In addition, he has also edited a large number of anthologies relating to various literary and philosophical figures. His books have been translated into 40 languages.

  2. Peter Diamond

    3. MIT – Economics

    Peter Arthur Diamond (born April 29, 1940) is a Nobel laureate in economics. Along with his impressive contribution to an economics theory (the biggest hurdles in the labor and housing markets are time and knowledge), Diamond is also known for his analysis of the U.S. social security policy. He has also made contributions to various areas such as government debt, capital accumulation, optimal taxation, capital markets and risk sharing. Currently, he is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  3. Samuel Ting

    4. MIT – Physics

    Samuel Ting (born January 27, 1936) is an American physicist, who holds several awards including the Nobel Prize for Physics and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award. He was chosen for the Nobel Prize for his discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind – the meson nuclear particle. Ting is the main investigator for the international $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment that was installed on the International Space Station in 2011. He is currently serving as a professor in the MIT Physics Department.

  4. Mary Miller

    5. Yale – History of Art

    Mary Miller (born December 30, 1952), was the Dean of Yale College from 2008 to June 2014. She is an American art historian who specializes in the understanding of Mesoamerica and the Mayas. Her thesis during her PhD at Yale was titled The Murals of Bonampak, Chiapas Mexico.  Yale granted her the position of a Sterling Professor.  Miller has also participated as a guest curator in the highly acclaimed exhibition “The Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya” that took place at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, in 2004.

  5. Dan Ariely

    6. Duke – Psychology and Behavioral Economics

    Dan Ariely (born April 29, 1967) is a professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, teaching at the Duke University. He is a famous TED speaker as well, whose talks have been viewed over 7.8 million times. Ariely is also the author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, both New York Times best sellers. He has also taught at MIT between 1998 and 2008, as an Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics. Even though Ariely is a professor of marketing, with no formal training in economics, he is classified as one of the leading behavioral economists.

  6. Robert Lefkowitz

    7. Duke – Biochemistry

    Robert Lefkowitz (born April 15, 1943), is a recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries relating to the inner workings of G protein-coupled receptors.  He worked as the Associate Professor of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the Duke University Medical Center in 1973, and in 1982, he became a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine at the Duke University. His area of concentration is  receptor biology and single transduction, and he is very well known for his in-depth characterization of the structure, sequence and function of the β-adrenergic and related receptors.

  7. Steven Levitsky

    8. Harvard – Professor of Government

    Steven Levitsky (born January 17, 1968) is a Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a comparative political scientist with research interests focused on Latin America, political parties, party systems, authoritarianism and democratization. He is famous for his contributions to the notions of competitive authoritarianism regimes and informal political institutions. Levitsky also sits on the Executive Committees of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. He is the author of several books, namely Competitive Authoritarianism: The Origins and Evolution of Hybrid Regimes in the Post-Cold War Era (with Lucan A. Way) and Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America (edited with Gretchen Helmke).

  8. Jennifer Roberts

    9. Harvard – Professor of History of Art and Architecture

    Jennifer L. Roberts is an Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. She is also the Chair of the Program in American Studies. She teaches American art, starting from the colonial period to the present and her main focus is on landscape, material culture, print culture and the history of science. She did her undergraduate from Stanford University and her masters and PhD degrees from Yale University. For her dissertation, she won the esteemed Frances Blanshard Prize for the most distinguished dissertation in the History of Art, Yale University. She is also the author of several books in her field, including Mirror Travels: Robert Smithson and History, Transporting Visions: The Movement of Images in Early America and American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity.

  9. Francesca Gino

    10. Harvard – Professor of Business Administration – Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit

    Francesca Gino has achieved quite a lot at the young age of 36. The work she has produced appeals to both management and psychology and has been published by leading academic journals. She has had her work featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, Psychology Today and Scientific American. In addition to being a professor at the Harvard Business School, she is also formally associated with the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School. Author of the popular book Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed and How We Can Stick to the Plan, Gino teaches a variety of courses at HBS.

  10. George Akerlof

    11. Professor of Economics – Georgetown University

    George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and a university professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. He shared a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz. He has also held the office of a Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. In the field of economics, he has contributed to theories such as The Market for Lemons and Asymmetric Information, Identity Economics, Reproductive Technology Shock, Looting and Norms and Macroeconomics.

  11. Mehran Sahami

    12. Professor of Computer Science – Stanford University

    Mehran Sahami is a Professor and Associate Chair for Education for the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. He completed his bachelors and PhD degrees from Stanford University as well, under the supervision of Daphne Koller. Before joining Stanford as a professor, Sahami was a Senior Research Scientist at Google, Inc. and the Senior Engineering Manager at Epiphany, Inc. He also co-chairs the ACM Education Board and Education Council. In 2013, the graduating senior class selected Sahami to give the annual Class Day Lecture at Stanford University’s Commencement Weekend ceremonies. He teaches introductory Computer Science at Stanford, and is even credited with having the CS curriculum redesigned from a large core to a smaller core with specialization tracks.

  12. Bradley E. Aouizerat

    13. Professor of Dentistry – NYU

    Bradley E. Aouizerat is a Professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at NYU. He has previously been a Professor of Physiological Nursing at University of California, San Francisco. His research mainly focused on the discovery and characterization of genetic and epigenetic determinants of common symptoms experienced in chronic diseases. Aouizerat has a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and a PhD in Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles. He also has a master’s degree in Clinical Research from the University of California, San Francisco. He has published over 140 articles in distinguished journals, books, reviews, columns and consults for both national and international institutions.

  13. David N. Silvers

    14. Professor of Dermatology and Pathology – Columbia University

    In addition to being the Professor of Dermatology and Pathology, David N. Silvers is also the Director of the Dermatopathology Laboratory at the Columbia University. He has received his MD from Duke University, graduating in 1968. He is board certified in dermatology and pathology and holds a certification of special competence in Dermatopathology. He is also credited with participation and contributions in a lot of publications, such as his work on ‘Clinical efficacy of short topical 5-Fluorouracil in the treatment of keratoacanthomas: a retrospective analysis’ and ‘Cutaneous metastasis of a perivascular epithelioid cell tumor’. Silvers is also among the highest paid college professors in the US.

  14. Zev Rosenwaks

    15. Director and Physician-in-Chief – Cornell Medical College

    Zev Rosenwaks heads The Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine (CRM). He is a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at Weill Medical College, Cornell University. In addition to holding a senior position at Cornell, Rosenwaks is also the Attending Obstetrician-Gynecologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Rosenwaks has done intensive research in assisted reproductive technology (ART). His current research revolves around developing morphologic and biologic markers of embryo viability in order to enable embryo transfer and avoid multiple pregnancies. He has won the First Prize in Vitro Fertilization Paper Award by Joseph Itskovitz, the First Prize Poster Presentation Award by David Kreiner and the Poster Prize Award.

  15. Andrew M. Isaacs

    16. Professor of Business and Engineering – University of California, Berkeley

    Andrew M. Isaacs is an Adjunct Professor at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Geochemistry from the University of Michigan. He got his masters degree from the University of Michigan too in the same subject.  Isaacs has taught courses on Marketing for High Tech Entrepreneurs, Opportunity Recognition, Sustainability, Business Innovation and the Business of Nanotechnology. He has served as a member of the Advisory Board, University of Michigan, College of Literature, Science and Arts and holds the position for Director of Hitachi Fellows Program, IBM Ventures Fellows Program, Mayfield Fellows Program and Bridging the Divide Program on Technology in the Developing World.

These professors are all accomplished in their respective fields and have won countless awards for their contributions to research and the world of education. Their efforts to make higher education more challenging, informative and engaging are certainly commendable and are the reason they have landed on this distinguished list.